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in my dream we drive to canada 
& get a parking ticket. it looks like
tennessee with all the hills & knees. 
i used to have a video camera
when i was a kid
with tiny tapes in it. i did not know
how to watch the films anywhere
besides the small back window.
it was like a submarine portal.  i laid
on my stomach to witness them. 
we made music videos & sometimes
ghost stories in the yard with 
all the rusted nails. my dreams get
smoother the older i am. 
one of these days i'll wake up
& i won't feel rot all around me. 
that's not today. instead, i am trying
desperately to name all the flies. 
i start with soft names & more on
to sharp ones like "kevin" & "alex." 
i have a parking ticket that i've forgotten
to pay & the centipede parts of me
want to know what will happen 
if i never do. i am already running
from the state, why not make it
electric & green? of course not.
i am going to stay on a path
that leads me to snacks standing
at a kitchen counter & a field
of tall grass & berries. the tiny joys
that bring me to tears. i wanted
to stay in canada. there was a bookstore
& all those trees. i don't know how
i got back without a car. i put on
walking directions to the small town
in italy where my grandmother
was from. they do not know me
& i do not know them. i walk there.
it takes a month. when i arrive
it is canada but instead of tennesee
the land looks like san diego. 
desert flowers & buttery shoreline. 
i want to watch the videos. i want
to see them playing all the time.
where did those phantoms of me go?
i guess they are still in the video camera's
belly hidden in a box in a box. 
my parents house grows a million legs
& yet somehow, still does not move. 

cock pot guts

i don't know how anyone finds 
the time to chew their food. instead,
i swallow things whole like
a fucking snake. i have seen my dad
unhinge his jaw when he gets home
from work. the factory is not just
a place but an entity that moved through him
into me. i find myself in boiling water
with the flesh falling off the bone.
tender as a flight of bird children. 
i do not know much about eating. i know
about parking lots & driving 
through a portal into another town
where the supermarket smells different.
i used to make a trek to the shoprite 
on the other side of the fork in the road.
left at the adult world & the fried chicken place.
rural pennsylvania is a place for 
people who carry forks in our purses.
we haven't really had a good meal in years.
the food turns to water. we drink.
my father was never good at making dinner.
instead, he took us to the tavern. 
i loved to sit at the bar & watch men
turn into turkeys. french fries & a sword
lodged in a stone. i draw a bath 
of beef broth. i put a bouillon cube 
on my tongue like communion. i get
a text that there is a church full 
of steak. we get there to find it empty.
nothing but the bones. we dig in the soil
until we find a time capsule full of 
trail mix it is enough for now. it is enough
to keep me from turning into a bagged lunch.
a sea gull dies mid flight. i bury her
& all the oceans she has. 

inside the leopard purse

what do you mean you don't
have a face? what do you mean there 
aren't halos stuck in the drain?
all i asked for is excess. i want
the too much jungle. 
i need my headphones to overflow
with the life we can't have. 
each spot is a continent on 
another planet where they have
this shit figured out & no one
is hungry & every spends the nights
looking at the stars & dreaming.
in the sacristy the sinks feed 
into the soil. i get my pipes like that.
return my crumbs to their mother.
i bought the purse as a joke. faux fur.
the animals still running. the joke
gets less funny the hungrier i am.
i wear it to the train station. there are
not actually any trains so we're just
standing there with empty bags.
i fill my purse with leaves. crawl inside.
get really really really lost. i feel
like i did in grad school when there
were too many hours & not enough.
i throw coins into passing boys' mouths.
love finds me like a parking ticket.
you are too late. there is a wild cat
at the door & she is offering her skin
in exchange for all the meat in the fridge. 

smoke alarms 

i watch the smoke alarms
turn into eyes
one by one. first the one in the hall
that watches me take my face off
& flush it down the toilet
each day. i know in the case of a fire
that at least i will be seen. 
witnessed by some being elsewhere.
almost every place i've ever lived in 
has had a fire next door. the one on
delaware ave when the row houses 
caught one after another. 
this is how stars are formed. the brief horror
of one night stretching the length of
our lungs. in a dream someone tells me,
"you would look better with wings."
i hear the smoke alarm go off 
in the middle of the night. all the eyes 
screaming. i press a finger to the iris.
i tell them there is nothing to see anymore.
one car rides when i'm sitting shotgun
i have to close my eyes. if i leave them open
i'll get car sick & dizzy. when no one else
is home i'll occasionally close my eyes
& feel my way around the house. 
i buy more fire alarms. i stich them 
inside the oven. bake them until 
they are gold & we are so safe that we 
no longer need water. one alarm chirps
& i bury it under the cedar tree. the tree
blooms with nestlings. i do not know
what it means to be safe. the house
stares like a window man. i learn to perform
in all places. search in my ribs 
like a sock drawer in the hopes of finding
a desire i can salvage & fill with air. 

underwater playground

when they find our tongues,
i hope they hear us laughing.
i take my water body
& sink as deep as a stone.
in the shower, i trace a ladder
down your back. 
there we are in the dance room. there
we are without eyes. wheels
for fingers. the slide into a ripe darkness.
i want to meet you there 
in the underwater playground.
my breath held tight as a fist.
i want to not be able to speak words. 
let go. a ghost comes out my mouth.
climb stairs into an ancient game. 
it is quiet. after years of searching
my whole life for a place to be dead,
i find it here. the fish do not come.
instead, they treat it like a haunted house.
we trace the symbols in stone.
never lost to the salt or the song.
i cannot come home. you will have
to point to pictures of me & say,
"he is somewhere else now
beneath the water, kelp in his hair." 

speed limits

if we get home, i want to open all the windows
& let the bugs in. yesterday i drove to 
new york city alone. i prefer to speed by myself.
then no one can see just how bad 
a driver i am. well, i guess that is 
besides all the cars around me. but that is at least
an anonymous kind of shame. they were
having all their own little horrors anyway. horns 
& necklaces of taillights. i crave to go faster
than i should. i don't know if this is a confession
or a proclamation. when i was small
my dad would drive me through the cornfield roads
in the blue jeep. he drove as fast as he could.
the air moved through us & we briefly became birds.
i miss that car. it was like
an uncle & a dog at once. a creature that carried
us through thunderstorms & firefly seances.
i take the speed limit & chew on the zeros.
the roads are full of ghosts. i have been traveling
so much lately that i am starting to feel like i'm
living out of my car again. don't get me wrong
that was awful but there were these moments
of sugary smallness. a parking lot without 
any street lamps. a gas station brownie.
a moth too stunning to be from here. 
we get home & there is no house. there is just
a speed limit sign. a herald of the go-fast times
which we are barreling towards. the cicadas 
twirl their engines. the mosquitoes plant gems
beneath our flesh. i tell you, "i think we should 
get going." the headlights each swallow 
their own throats' worth of dark. 

the last quail 

sometimes i still see her ghost.
her heart the size of
a sunflower seed.
quails do not live long. two years
at the most. they were going on three. 
we started with eight. 
the boy who sung in the morning
& all the girls who laid 
the most beautiful eggs.
blue shells & speckled brown shells.
those little moons 
in our skillet. yolks, like plundered suns
buzzing on our tongues. 
one lost an eye to her sisters.
the boy, taken by a hawk 
one afternoon. as a girl,
i used to pray the rosary. i did not 
even believe in god. i just needed 
something to do with my hands.
the birds, like beads.
a thumb passing over our skulls.
the promise that we are
on a string of miracles. no matter
how brief & terrifying. 
i sat with the last quail
in the morning on some of her 
final days. i told her secrets 
that i do not want to tell you.
she always listened. told me
that she saw the rest. 
heard the boy singing like a 
legless flute. i do not know 
what to means to hold on 
to one another. why is everything 
so brief? the quail's ghost comes
to scold me. she says, "our brevity
is a gift." i am still trying
to understand what that means. 

eggs on the counter 

i crack my eyes open on the side
of a smooth metal day. burry my cell phone
& dig it up again eighteen times.
dirt beneath my fingernails. 
get a call from a terrible man 
who has more terrible news. an appointment
with a shark in the driveway. 
on the side of the road on the way 
to an empty bucket i saw a ground hog.
i talked to him out the car window.
i said, "what if we don't make it?"
he said, "i am just here." is it too much
to ask to encounter an oracle?
instead, i find little bugs in the chicken coop. 
they are smaller than the tooth
at the end of a question mark. i lift the eggs,
one at a time from the pine shavings.
they are empty as they have been
for weeks but still i harvest them. still i open them
as if one might be different. like pairs
of my own eyes. i hear people say
over & over, "i do not recognize the world anymore."
my trouble is i do. i see it coming into focus. 
people i love running from police
& all their fresh & horrible names. 
hands like claw machines. a gun for a star. 
all the eggs on the counter. i name them
before i put them in a carton 
on the shelf. give them to a friend & then
we go & try to carve a hole in the yard
deep enough for all our grief. we dig
past fossils & the bodies of our grandfathers.
houses made our of shoes. square-headed nails. 
when we stop it still isn't deep enough
but we find eggs there too. 

time blind

i want everyone to be late.
i want to wait around & decide
to cancel the big beautiful something
that i didn't feel like doing anyway.
my sadness has arms. it has lungs.
there are not enough
days to grieve. i make a thirteenth hour
& i tell no one about it. i think 
i will let it sit between 2pm & 3pm 
because no one does anything then
anyway. the hour will be violet
& on occasion, iridescent. i'm sorry
i don't want to share anymore. 
inside the hour i will get more than
nothing done. i will get so real
that work i've made will come apart.
do you ever wish you hadn't given
a part of yourself to a little machine?
i do all the time. if we were all late
maybe we could laugh more. eat more.
train the clocks to hold enough moths
to keep us alive. my father was always early.
we were the first to mass. the first
to the farmer's market. 
the first in line at the diner 
on a bruised leg morning. my lovers
always tell me i can only live in extremes.
if i don't arrive at all, can we just
both agree i was a different kind 
of late. i am a hypocrite because 
when someone doesn't show on me,
i always say, "i was stood up." tiny dates
for the tiny specks we are. once as a girl
i changed all the clocks in the house
so that we would leave sooner. 
i do not remember how my parents reacted.
maybe in all their rushing
from one mouth to another
they thought, "why can't we all
do that?" i am running early for
an appointment with a pile of shoes. 
i take a flight there. 
no one else boards but me. 

i do not want to talk about the weather

i don't want to talk about everything.
let's talk about the weather. let's talk about
the weather for next week. i will tell you, "i heard
it is going to get colder" & you will say,
"i heard it is going to rain" & neither of us
will have consulted any weather reports.
my husband says to me, "why do you always
do small talk even if you hate it?"
i don't know if i hate it. i think i am just
a survival creature. i did a ridiculous
white lady yoga video & the instructor said,
"set your intention for today with one word"
& "survive" was all i could come up with. 
i make small talk because sometimes it is easier 
for two bodies to use words as oars instead of as water. 
my most recent small talk was on a ride back
from the mechanic. the driver & me talked
about the rain. how much rain there was going
to be. the clouds like buffalo beneath our
fingernails. i do not want to just keep
barely making it through each sun drowning. 
that is where i am though. i find myself
more & more grateful for the weather. 
at least there is still something that we 
can all feel. the water on your face, on mine.
the slight damp you feel in your socks 
no matter how quick & waterproof you thought
you were. i have to admit that sometimes
i make things up. we start talking about
about the weather & i imagine things
better than they are. i stay, "it is going to
be clear tomorrow. at night they say 
we're going to be able to see all the stars
even the dead ones." the driver dropped me off.
an hour later it down poured. my husband
was in bed with a migraine. i sat with 
all the dogs on the couch. our weather talk was wordless.
i did not need to tell them about the storm.
the air tasted like pennies & nectar.